


Officer's Mess

by horselizard



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Humiliation, Messy, Season/Series 11, Season/Series 11 Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 14:19:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horselizard/pseuds/horselizard
Summary: SPOILERS (ish) FOR RED DWARF XI EPISODE 4 "OFFICER RIMMER"!So I thought I'd try something a little bit ridiculous... the episode has NOT yet aired, I did NOT go to any recordings or previews, I have NO insider knowledge, I am ONLY basing this off synopses and promo photos and whatnot.This is what happened when all those titbits of information jiggled together in my mind. I very much doubt this is anything close to how the episode will play out, but a ficcer can dream ;)





	

They heard the sound from the corridor outside. Dozens of gentle thuds, like a spinney of slender trees slowly collapsing in a storm.

Perturbed, the three shipmates rushed to the entrance of the Officer’s Club. The door-clone who usually stood on duty was stretched out on the floor, a dopey smile frozen on his pale, waxy features. With no-one there to insist that this was a private club and crewmembers of their rank were not to be admitted, they stepped inside to investigate.

They hadn’t yet seen the interior of the club in all its refurbished glory, but the sight they were met with when they entered didn’t exactly show it off to best effect. The plush burgundy carpet and deep leather armchairs were littered with the rigid, lifeless bodies of bio-printed Rimmers. They lay everywhere, nothing but empty husks, all with that same vague smile.

They finally found the hologram in the club’s inner sanctum, standing at the head of the long dining table, at which was seated a full complement of defunct clones. He looked shocked, certainly, but not exactly concerned.

“For smeg’s sake, Rimmer,” Lister exploded, “we told you this would happen! You knew the bio-printer tech wasn’t stable! And you went ahead and did this anyway - and now they’ve all just burnt out!”

Rimmer looked at him disdainfully. “What does it matter? They’re only clones.” He adjusted his white dress uniform haughtily. “I’ll just make some more.”

“Only clones?” Lister exclaimed. “They were sentient, Rimmer! They might have been weird, unstable copies of a weird, unstable man… but they had thoughts, they had feelings, they were _people_! This is as bad as Wax World. No, you know what? It’s worse. Because you might have killed all the wax droids, but at least you didn’t bring them into being knowing they would die!”

Rimmer smirked the smirk of a man who knows his light bee is safely ensconced within a hard-light body. “They’re my clones, Lister, and I can do what I like with them, never mind what any jumped-up technician with ideas above his station has to say about it.”

Lister scowled. “Well, the first thing you can smegging do with them is clear them up. Your fancy Officer's Club ain’t looking so pretty with corpses sprawled everywhere. You made this mess, Rimmer, you can deal with the consequences.”

Rimmer turned smugly to Kryten. “Kryten, as the highest-ranking officer on board this ship,” he relished the words, “I order you to clear up the club.” He took in Lister’s fury with amusement. “A much more suitable task for a sanitation droid than for a man of my standing, I think.”

Kryten had a strange expression on his plastic face; his usual resigned obedience was fighting for position with something else. It all seemed to be getting too much for him - Rimmer’s dismissiveness, the reminder of the doomed pawn droids on Wax World… and all around them, the scattered shells of man-made beings, created as wish-fulfilment in a humanoid image, and then cast aside when they had outlived their usefulness. Something was rising up within the mechanoid, an emotion he hadn’t truly managed to express in decades.

“Mr Officer, sir,” he began, drawing himself up to his full height, “many years ago, there was something I would have liked to do, which I was not, at the time, able to do.” He had faltered at first, but now his hesitant voice was getting stronger. “And now, I find myself able to do it. And so, Mr Officer, sir, I think I might be about to do it.”

Rimmer raised an eyebrow. “What on Io are you blathering on about?”

He didn’t have long to wait for an answer. Kryten turned to the long dining table, snatched a silver tureen from the hands of a prone waiter-clone, and pitched its contents straight into Rimmer’s face.

Rimmer staggered back, spluttering, as a tide of lukewarm liquid sloshed over him. The force of it was almost painful, especially where it shot up his arrogantly flared nostrils; it dislodged his peaked officer’s cap, and cascaded down to stain his gleaming white dress uniform technician’s-boilersuit-orange. He gasped and shook himself, sending droplets of soup flying over the table, then wiped his eyes and looked up with disbelieving outrage at the triumphant mechanoid.

“With respect, Mr Officer, sir,” Kryten spat, “you can clean up your own damn mess.”

Rimmer wasn’t often rendered speechless, but getting drenched with soup by a rebellious sanitation droid, while Lister and the Cat looked on in astonished glee, was just about enough to do it. He dripped impotently, jaw slack, as Kryten strode away, the Cat sniggering in his wake.

Lister eyed him with amused malice. He certainly didn’t look like officer material now; his aghast face was plastered with the thick orange soup, streaks of it festooned his hair, and his uniform was soaked through and utterly ruined.

“Could have been worse, Rimmer,” he grinned cruelly. “Could have been gazpacho.”

Then he, too, turned to go, leaving the lone officer as uncontested master of his ruined domain.


End file.
